Incubation Temp. help please

[MeepBeep]

My thermometer tells me what the high and low was for the day. For two days in a row my high has reached 102 degree and my low has been 97 degree. Any tips on how to completely fix this?

There very well might be nothing to fix, your thermometer is measuring the 'air' temp and that can easily swing with the cycling of heating elements, depending on the swing of the thermostat circuit... The mean average of 102° and 97° is a dead on 99.5° and that very well might be your internal egg temp... In the end internal 'egg' temp is what is important, and to measure that you can construct a fake egg...

I use 4oz and 2oz (premie) baby bottles configured like bellow, this is a 4oz bottle with the nipple inverted it holds give or take 3oz and that is a good size for peafowl eggs but will also work pretty well for standard chicken eggs... A 2oz bottle though would be better for chicken eggs if you are going to purchase one...

Fill it with water and put a thermometer in there and monitor that temp... The nipple acts as a gasket, especially slow flow nipples that only have a single hole...

Another option is to take the fake plastic Easter eggs, and using 2 part 5 minute epoxy seal up any holes (most nowadays have two holes on the end) and then glue the thing together... Next take a say 3/16" drill or about and drill a hole in the side, get yourself some medical lube (aka KY jelly and fill the egg up) then take a small piece of duct tape and close the hole well... Next take a nail or what not and put a small hole in the duct tape and force a thermometer in there... The duct tape will act as a gasket and since the medical lube is thicker then water it won't drip out as easily, especially if you position the egg hole upwards... Eventually the medical lube will dry out but you should easily be able to get a few incubation cycles out of it...

Another option some suggested was to fill the fake egg with water absorbing crystals and water, they can be found in the garden section for planted pots, in the toy isle as 'squishy baff' or if you have access to a baby diaper, rip it open (carefully) and empty out all the little sand like beads... That stuff will absorb about 800x it's weight in water and become like thick jello or tapioca putting and won't easily leak out of the egg...

Or the quick and dirty one that doesn't last all that long but is cheap, take a ziplock bag, put in 2oz of water, get as much air out as you can and zip it shut, roll, scrunch, clump that bag around the end of a thermometer so the thermometer is in the middle...

There are also commercial fake eggs but they are costly...

 

[kbaabyyy36]

There very well might be nothing to fix, your thermometer is measuring the 'air' temp and that can easily swing with the cycling of heating elements, depending on the swing of the thermostat circuit... The mean average of 102° and 97° is a dead on 99.5° and that very well might be your internal egg temp... In the end internal 'egg' temp is what is important, and to measure that you can construct a fake egg...

I use 4oz and 2oz (premie) baby bottles configured like bellow, this is a 4oz bottle with the nipple inverted it holds give or take 3oz and that is a good size for peafowl eggs but will also work pretty well for standard chicken eggs... A 2oz bottle though would be better for chicken eggs if you are going to purchase one...

Fill it with water and put a thermometer in there and monitor that temp... The nipple acts as a gasket, especially slow flow nipples that only have a single hole...

Another option is to take the fake plastic Easter eggs, and using 2 part 5 minute epoxy seal up any holes (most nowadays have two holes on the end) and then glue the thing together... Next take a say 3/16" drill or about and drill a hole in the side, get yourself some medical lube (aka KY jelly and fill the egg up) then take a small piece of duct tape and close the hole well... Next take a nail or what not and put a small hole in the duct tape and force a thermometer in there... The duct tape will act as a gasket and since the medical lube is thicker then water it won't drip out as easily, especially if you position the egg hole upwards... Eventually the medical lube will dry out but you should easily be able to get a few incubation cycles out of it...

Another option some suggested was to fill the fake egg with water absorbing crystals and water, they can be found in the garden section for planted pots, in the toy isle as 'squishy baff' or if you have access to a baby diaper, rip it open (carefully) and empty out all the little sand like beads... That stuff will absorb about 800x it's weight in water and become like thick jello or tapioca putting and won't easily leak out of the egg...

Or the quick and dirty one that doesn't last all that long but is cheap, take a ziplock bag, put in 2oz of water, get as much air out as you can and zip it shut, roll, scrunch, clump that bag around the end of a thermometer so the thermometer is in the middle...

There are also commercial fake eggs but they are costly...

this helped so much! Thank you! The books i rented for library to try to get a better understanding deff dont have any of this info! Plus i have a 3month old daughter so i have the things needed on hand! I never thought about it as an average temp so this reassured me some! Thank you again

 

[MeepBeep]

I never thought about it as an average temp so this reassured me some! Thank you again

Well it's best to actually use a fake egg and make sure it's actually averaging out in the middle as expected because it could shift up or down depending on the duration of the cold and hot cylces..

One thing people seem to miss or that skips their mind while they are so focused on 99.5° 'air' temp in incubators is that a chickens body temp is actually about 105°F to 107°F so even broody chickens have to play the averaging game to keep the eggs at the proper temp, this is why they get off the nest for a short time or constantly rotate the eggs from inner to outer where the ambient air temps or ground temp will cool them to the proper temp, because if they actually sat solid on the eggs they would be very close to lethal temps if not lethal...

 

[kbaabyyy36]

Well it's best to actually use a fake egg and make sure it's actually averaging out in the middle as expected because it could shift up or down depending on the duration of the cold and hot cylces..

One thing people seem to miss or that skips their mind while they are so focused on 99.5° 'air' temp in incubators is that a chickens body temp is actually about 105°F to 107°F so even broody chickens have to play the averaging game to keep the eggs at the proper temp, this is why they get off the nest for a short time or constantly rotate the eggs from inner to outer where the ambient air temps or ground temp will cool them to the proper temp, because if they actually sat solid on the eggs they would be very close to lethal temps if not lethal...

you seriously alot! Hopefully one day i will be as knowledgable in the subject as you. I have a huge interest in learning about and raising my own chickens. So after i failed at incubation the first time about a year ago i decided to jusy start out with 10 or so birds. My hubby and i turned our old smokehouse into a huge coop added a chicken door for them to come and go as they wish and they love it. I wanted to make sure i could handle it and give them the care they needed. I was really discouraged after my first attempt. But They seem to be doing really well and so i figured id move on to the next step. However thiz step is MUCH harder than sticking a couple birds in a coop, feeding them, and such. But thats ok. I like the challenge. Hopefully i get it right thanks again for all of your advice!

 

[N F C]

Good luck for good results with your hatch!